Sixty Six to Success:

Sixty Six to Success:

One of the things that I was taught was that it takes time to create a habit.
The research varies and some say it takes 21 daysm 28 days, even up to 100 days to form
a habit.
However, one of the most common theories puts the timeline at about 66 days.
Two months and a week.
Which suits me and my current writing regime, as right now I'm participating in ROW80, an eighty day stint of writing practices and a chunk of time in which Writers vow to complete a series of tasks.

My thing was to write a blog entry every day for 80 days. So far, so good.

One of the biggest issues has been finding the right time of day to do my writing.
I've tried to follow the idea of getting up earlier. Some people suggest at least an hour earlier.
Robin Sharma even suggests getting up at 5am, although that's a bit extreme for me right at the moment.

If I was  a night-owl, I could write when the rest of the house is in bed.

Whenever you feel the most comfortable writing is up to you.
The important thing is to find a time that works and try to work within that time consistantly.
If you have to let the rest of the household know to give you your space, then so be it.

What helps is letting them know that you are taking your writing seriously.
You  become partners in creating the writing habit.
However, having a definite time makes me at least commit to writing during that time.
Loose or vague goals or guidelines don't lend themselves to productivity, in my experience.
However, what does work is what Merlin Mann calls "Courageous blocking" setting aside a distince set of time and sticking to it.
He suggests that anything less than 15 minutes is a waste, as it takes you that long to get into your writing.
I think we talked about this before but chunking your tasks together tends to create those blocks of time where you can just concentrate on the writing and not the laundry (Although a laundry cycle is a good block of time to write for without a break (our washer runs about 25 minutes per load).

However long you write for or however long you write for, try to make it a constant...
That is the first step towards seeing yourself as a Writer.